Fascinating stories, all! I've enjoyed seeing where everyone's nick comes from, also from those who posted before "the big crash".
Didn't get around to explaining where my nick comes from before, so here goes. I suppose I ought to explain even more now that I've asked people to call me Kaethel on the boards/ficlist and not mix it up with my real name. [bg]
I've been using Kaethel as a nickname since I was 17 (I'm 24 now -- you do the maths
). Back then, I was a huge fan of a national radio talk show, and I called the host quite regularly (it was one of those shows where listeners call to suggest a topic of discussion or talk about something funny they had seen).
Anyway, when I first called, I used my real name, and I felt kind of uncomfortable to be so easily recognisable. All right, most of my friends knew the next day that I'd called (I was so excited that I couldn't shut up about it
), but the next time I did it, I decided that it would be best to use a nick.
In the meantime, the talk show in question had once a topic (I can't remember how it came up) where the host said (jokingly) that his guardian angel (according to his name and personal details that he'd entered into a database) was called "Kaethel". He didn't spell it, and the topic was never broached again. But I'd heard the name and for some reason, the sonority of it appealed enormously. I invented a spelling to go with it almost immediately. Actually, back then the spelling I used was "Kaëthel" (for those whose computer gets this mangled, there's a little sign (2 dots) on the first "e").
I used this nick to call the radio, and most of my friends at school knew I wanted to be called that way. Most of them still called me by my real name, though. Or occasionally "crinière de feu" ("fire hair") because it's at the age 17 that I started to dye my hair red. Anyway... where was I? Oh yes, Kaethel.
Well, I went so far as using it officially once. I was on a ski trip in the Pyrenees that year, and I took some ski lessons. And I told my group (including our teacher - who was gorgeous, by the way, but I digress, sorry
) that my name was Kaethel. For a whole week I got called this way - I was ecstatic!
Then things moved on and almost everyone around me forgot about Kaethel, even though I was always wearing a bracelet with the nick engraved on it: first a leather bracelet - the kind of thing you find in touristic places and get specially engraved to your name - then a silver one - which I still wear now - when I lost the leather one a few years ago. Even though it wasn't used by anyone, the nick Kaethel sort of followed me.
When my parents finally got a computer and internet access, we had to decide what name we would use for an email address. Thankfully our ISP back then didn't impose anything onto us, and asked us to give them whatever name/nick we wanted. Since the internet access was mostly for me, my folks told me to go ahead with whatever I preferred - of course Kaethel was the first thing I thought about, and so the two dots on the first "e" that I talked about earlier were dropped, since email addresses don't support special characters.
It still wasn't a definite thing until the first time I joined IRC (Kerth Ceremony 1999). I had told mIRC to use "FlyGirl" as a first nick (I had wanted to use it because it looked sort of related to Lois & Clark), but it was already taken, so it used my alternate: Kaethel. I have no idea who was using FlyGirl that night, but if I knew I would like to thank her!
Thanks to her, I used Kaethel right away, and I'm very glad I did. I got very attached to the nick over the years.
Again, when I sent my first fanfic to the archive came the time to wonder what name I would post it under. I almost used my real name then, but decided that since I was very much a closet folc (still am, actually - not so much a closet folc than a closet author), it might be better to use a nick. Mind you, it doesn't make much sense since all my friends know my nick through my email address, and typing "Kaethel" in google gives you a lot more matches for me than my real name does. But oh well.
Anyway, that's my story.
Kaethel
